title: [Radiofrequency ablation of type I atrial flutter: combination of electrophysiological and anatomical techniques].
abstract: Atrial flutter type I (FLA) is one of the most common arrhythmias found in clinical practice. Reentry into the right atrium (AD) is the mechanism of this arrhythmia. The reentry mechanism has critical sites where radiofrequency (RF) can act blocking the circuit. Both, electrophysiological and anatomical approaches using RF to FLA have demonstrated a success rate above 80%. Our group combined both techniques treating 35 patients with FLA type I (22 men and 13 women), with mean age of 40.8 +/- 15 years old (range 9-70). In 21 patients (60%) this arrhythmia was associated with cardiopathy. All patients had failed to respond to different antiarrhythmic therapy. The success rate was 82.8% (29/35). When compared failure vs success we observed that patients who failed were older (51.8 vs 38.5 years old, p < 0.05), had structural cardiopathy (83.3% vs 55.1%, p = NS), had FLA type I with P waves with shorter cycle length (195 vs 254 ms, p = 0.052), had the arrhythmia chronically (129.6 vs 68.1 month, p = NS), had great left atrium diameter (41.2 vs 36.7 mm, p = 0.052) and frequently had been associated with atrial fibrillation (33.3% vs 3.4%, p = 0.02). There were no complications. Six (20.6%) patients reverted to FLA. We followed our patients during mean time 8.37 +/- 8.8 months (1-36). Our results support the notion that FLA type I can be treated with high percentage of success and low risk of complications when both RF techniques are combined. Our predictors of failure were: gender and associated atrial fibrillation (p < 0.05). We conclude that RF is the treatment of choice in every patient with FLA type I who had failed to antiarrhythmic therapy. We recommend RF as soon as FLA has been diagnosed because the probability of success is higher in such instances.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Electrocardiografía y Electrofisiología, Instituto Nacional de Cardiología Ignacio Chávez, INCICH, México, D.F.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Rodríguez
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Iturralde Torres
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Cruz Cruz
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Muñoz
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Colín
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kershenovich
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: González Hermosillo
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001282:Atrial Flutter / Q000145:classification / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000601:surgery*; D017115:Catheter Ablation / Q000379:methods*; D002648:Child; D004562:Electrocardiography; D004594:Electrophysiology; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D013997:Time Factors
vernacular_title: Ablación con radiofrecuencia del flutter atrial tipo I: combinación de las técnicas electrofisiológica y anatómica.